Several studies on mixed oligopoly indicate that the ownership pattern of firms does not affect the equilibrium price. This idea often suggests that ownership is irrelevant. In a mixed duopoly under price competition, firm ownership is irrelevant. This study reveals that ownership is irrelevant in a single publicly owned firm and in any positive number of privately owned firms. However, if two or more publicly owned firms exist, then ownership becomes relevant in a homogeneous good market with a strictly increasing convex cost schedule and a downward sloping demand curve. If firms set the price sequentially and if the lone public firm is a price leader, then social welfare is constantly greater than when the latter is a price follower. The unique price is the competitive price when the public firm moves first in the sequential game.

Applies a modern game-theoretic approach to develop a theory of oligopoly pricing. The text relates classic contributions to the field of modern game theory and discusses basic game-theoretic tools and equilibrium, paying particular attention to developments in the theory of supermodular games.

In this paper we consider mixed oligopoly markets for differentiated goods where private and public firms compete either in prices or quantities. We then study the welfare effect of privatization interpreted as partial strategic delegation of the public firm to a private manager with profit concern. It is shown that partial privatization improves welfare with quantity competition when goods are substitutes, and with price competition when goods are complements. However full privatization (complete delegation to private manager) can never be optimal. It is also shown that the public firm can make more profit than the private firm in equilibrium, and that this possibility is more likely under quantity competition. Turning to market regulation policy, we find: (i) that public and private firms should be taxed the same; and (ii) that price regulation is better than quantity regulation.

This research investigates three issues related to the economic performance of oligopolistic markets where firms produce differentiated products and compete in prices. First of all, this dissertation uses a Markov Perfect Equilibrium approach with fixed periods of commitment of actions to answer the question of what prices a duopolists will charge in equilibrium if they produce horizontally differentiated products, move alternatingly, and compete in prices forever. It is found that firms charge prices which are higher than Nash equilibrium prices but lower than the fully collusive equilibrium prices. Also, contrasted with the Nash equilibrium of the one-shot constituent game, the firm having the significantly higher demand responsiveness to its own price always charges a lower price than the other firm does although it has higher marginal cost. The dissertation then proceeds to study whether a firm can overcome its cost disadvantage by upgrading its product over the rival's, and if so, whether there exists a profit-division which will induce the low cost firm and the high cost firm to collude and no one has an incentive to cheat. The results show that (1) the ability of upgrading the product over the rival's can allow a high cost firm to earn higher profit than a cost advantaged low cost firm; (2) there exists at least one profit-division which can sustain full collusion; and (3) in the collusive equilibrium firms enlarge their quality differences to alleviate the price tension between their products. Finally, this work investigates the welfare effect of mergers which occur in an oligopolistic industry where firms produce differentiated products. It is shown that for the merger to be socially beneficial, the number of the merging firms must be less than the total number of firms in the industry minus the ratio of the products' own elasticity to cross elasticity. The analysis indicates that the welfare effect of a merger of a specific size depends on the substitutability among products of the industry.

The theory of price and quality decision-making in industries with a few firms which recognize their mutual interdependence is of increasing interest to economists and policy makers. This book introduces a novel theory of that decision-making, based upon the notion of the industry as a community of agents who are involved in both competitive and cooperative relationships. It develops theories and illustrates methodological approaches to the analysis of price and quality decision-making in such instances of a 'rivalrous consonance of interests' among firms.